Everglades Biographies

Mary McDougal Axelson

Mary McDougal was born in 1891 in Oklahoma. Mary McDougal attended
a finishing school in Missouri, known as North Texas Female College,
and she later studied social welfare at the University of Oklahoma.
Mary focused on political reform, establishing a home for delinquent
girls, before concentrating on a literary career. Mary McDougal then
left Oklahoma and moved to New York City where she wrote poetry and
essays on suffrage until 1916 when she joined the Woodrow Wilson presidential
campaign.

In 1920, Mary McDougal's father, Daniel A. McDougal requested that
Mary assist with land sales in his Florida real estate business, which
he operated as part-owner of the Chevelier Company. Mary successfully
negotiated land sales and oil contracts, and managed to continue her
suffrage work. While in South Florida, she joined and spoke before the
Miami Suffrage League.

In 1923, Mary met her future husband Ivar Axelson, an economist. When
the couple first married, Miami served as their temporary home. Together
with Daniel A. McDougal, they became major shareholders in the Chevelier
Corporation. Profits from land sales allowed them to leave the area
and pursue other careers. The Axelsons retained a large portion of their
lands, however, and were later involved in a prolonged battle to protect
their property rights in condemnation proceedings related to Everglades
National Park.